Mechanicsburg
by thermopylae
Summary: Oneshots centered around moments in gameplay. Chapter 2 up: Balthier is distracted in the midst of battle.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The Final Fantasy series and its characters are property of Square Enix. I do not own Final Fantasy XII and make no profit off this work, just like I made no profit when you bought the game. Curses!

**A/N:** 'Mechanicsburg' is the name of a PA town, and my current favorite place name. I wanted to do a series of one-shots or loosely connected one-shots based on game mechanics, when characters are on the field and in the players' control. They were supposed to all be humorous, but then a drama snuck its way in and everything was shot to hell. So I give you first a dramatic piece while I tinker with the others. Cue violin!

** possible spoilers ** Please decide for yourself what they are; I just write the stories.

"The Feywood"

Ashe hated the Feywood. The relentless attacks with no space to breathe in between, the twisted paths that went nowhere, the silence, the cold, the sense of trespassing on something sacred. And worst of all of these was the Mist.

"I see him everywhere," she cried, as another figure ghosted its way into the silvery shroud. Silver Mist, silver armor, silver ghost. It was all Ashe could do to stumble forward, her legs ever threatening to give way under the weight of her grief.

"It is not him who you see," said the Viera softly behind her. "Yourself, only."

She was right, but that made it all the more horrible. Unlike the Feywood's creatures, the Mist did not bother with a continuous assault. It struck when Ashe happened to raise her eyes from the uncertain marshy path in front of her, on the periphery of her skittish vision. And because every time it was as startling and upsetting as the first time, Ashe would snap her head around to follow the thing which she _knew_ to be illusion, just in time to see her own back retreating, her own tired feet rushing into the unknown.

_This is how I ran through the halls of the palace to the War Room, where they told me Rasler was dead and had left me a widow at seventeen. This is how I ran from the Throne Room, my father's death and queendom dogging my heels. This is how I ran through the sewers, under the bewildered feet of my people, amid the filth of my people, newly aquainted with Dalmasca. This is how I ran. This is how I am running and will run for so long as Rasler's ghost bids me go on. _

_I just want to know where I am going._

Her goals were always as elusive as the phantasm in the Mist. Riddles. Promises of 'maybe's. The sliver-thin, treacherous space between rocks and hard places. Hope comprised of subtle poisons. But on and on she went, her past self and her present both chasing the future, which refused to reveal its destination. And by the time Ashe thought she'd figured it out, she was already there - and lost as ever.

Nor was there any use in looking back. Ashe played tricks on her own mind by hoping that the Mist would stay ever in front, obscuring only what was to come. The path already trodden, she thought, might at least be left clear; if she could not find the way ahead, she wanted to see what steps had led to the here and now. But whenever she glanced over her shoulder, she found that the pearly fog had sidled 'round behind to enclose her. No past and no future, except for the ghosts.

Ashe began to run in circles.

After another round of mechanical fighting, from which she rose to step over the carcasses into the Mist, Basch put a diffident hand on her shoulder.

"Highness," he said, his mournful voice touched with gentleness, "this once, permit me to walk ahead of you."

She nodded wordlessly, too exhausted to protest the need of a shield. Basch trotted to the front of the party triangle and she fell back, adjusting her stride to match Fran's. The figures in the Mist looked different from back here, vaguer. They only suggested pain, and Ashe found that she did not have to accept what they implied. If she looked away very carefully, the shadows in the Mist were only shadows, caused by air currents and tricks of the light. The hurt was still there, but lessened.

From the way Basch was turning his head and shifting direction, Ashe knew it was different for the fallen knight. Whatever figure he saw in the Mist was likely his own; one ghost exchanged for another.

"Are there none who walk the Feywood freely?" Ashe asked, half to herself.

"Only those without regret," replied Fran. Ashe looked respectfully away - the Viera, living with regret for two of Ashe's lifetimes, surely knew of what she spoke.

Turning away turned her gaze backwards once more, but since her eyes no longer sought phantoms, she saw the people who were really there. Vaan and Penelo, their fair heads alternately darting and ducking, children squirming away from nightmares. The charm and dash wiped from Balthier's face to reveal something more grimly honest.

Regret: one more sad thing that bound their group together. Ashe wished it for her companions even less than she wanted it for herself. But she did not think she could bear to be alone in the Mist. Those around her were her companions - though once unwanted - and Ashe supposed she was thankful they were there, all their ghosts beckoning them, for now, toward the same unknowable future.

- - - - -  
**A/N:** When I first entered the Feywood, I really thought the Mist figures were random people. It took me a while to figure out they were just reflections of the current party leader. A little less cool, but still creepy and confusing. Anyway, feedback is alwasy appreciated, so please do leave some!


	2. Treasure

**!! Treasure**

It was one of those little surprises that life delighted him with sometimes. One minute backing into a quiet corner to load his gun, the next glancing over his shoulder as a knot of rope and metal bumped against his calf. A treasure chest.

"Why, hello there, gorgeous," Balthier murmured, even as one hand strayed dangerously away from his weapon. A single little peek couldn't hurt. It was but a moment's work to lean down, prop Beltegeuse against a handy tree, feel along the chest lid for a lock -

A cry rang out among the trees, bringing Balthier's attention back from material preoccupations. Rather dazedly, as if from a dream, he brought his eyes back up to focus. Vaan was having trouble with his Malboro assailant further along the suspended pathwalk. Balthier sighed. There was never any rest for the wicked.

All right; how long could it possibly take? He'd have to move out of the shadows - the battle was migrating by the second - and reload with the Silent Shot he'd somehow neglected to put in before. Why was that, now? Delicate brown brows furrowed to recollect. Ah, yes, because he'd found a treasure chest.

It was a lovely treasure chest, he mused, first-rate craftsmanship. And Balthier's roving fingers had found no fissures in the lock, nor did the chest sound hollow when he'd tapped its smooth wooden side. The rarest of rarities, then: undamaged, unlooted, carefully hidden away from greedy hands. Someone had really wanted to protect its contents. Naturally, Balthier was alive with curiosity to see those contents for himself. Maybe he'd even have to take them into his own possession for safekeeping. Precious treasure, after all, had no business being left all by its lonesome in the jungle. There could be robbers.

And Vaan was a big boy; he could take care of himself.

Of course he could.

Right.

Better make a run for it. The quicker to undo the lock, the quicker to return to help his companions in battle. Not that they needed help, surely. Balthier wheeled about.

"Leave it."

Dammit.

"I can hear you sneaking away."

Damn Viera and their inhumely sensitive ears! Fran was more than twenty feet off and spearing Marlboro flesh to boot - hardly a quiet activity - but she'd caught him out as easily as if they were standing shoulder to shoulder. Balthier stopped cold, though his eyes traveled longingly to the round little chest beckoning from the shade.

"It'll be but a second's work," he called, as reasonably as he could muster. If Fran would just leave off killing everything in her path and turn around and look at the chest, she'd surely understand.

"No."

"But -"

"Bal_thier_."

"All _right_."

There was absolutely no use arguing with a woman. It was Balthier's private theory that large amounts of adrenaline, produced for example in the midst of battle, could provoke in a member of the fairer sex heightened irrationality and pettiness in behavior. Why else would Fran begrudge him even the small, momentary, fleeting pleasure of opening a treasure chest? She knew how he felt about them. Yes, granted, there were now five Marlboros breathing noxious fumes on his companions, aided by a random passing Panther. And yes, Vaan was mere moments from collapsing - all right, now he _had_ succumbed to a combination of poison and blood-loss - which Balthier might have prevented if he'd been more vigilant in the wings. But who could have predicted it? It was so easy for Fran to glare at him _now_, after the fact.

Balthier sighed deeply as he fished a tuft of phoenix down out of a pouch. Sometimes, he thought mournfully, there was just no sympathy in this world.

- - - - -  
**notes:** Yes, it's true. My party leaders would much rather obtain 200 gil than fend off enemies. The Gambit commands, being automatic, quite often save me from myself D: Please leave feedback!


End file.
